The invention concerns a safety harness of the type used as a personal fall protection equipment (PFE) in order to provide a reliable fastening point on the body of the user so that it is later easily possible to couple the harness to a system which is anchored to a fixed anchorage point in such a way that the user can be supported by the system or slowed down by the system in a fall situation.
Harnesses can be constructed in different ways, and can be fixed or adjustable, but in order to function safely should be tight fitting under load in order that the force should be distributed to the body parts intended for it. The leg straps, for example, should be tight fitting in order to prevent them clamping around the genitals of the user under load which would be devastating in a braking situation after a fall when the body of the user momentarily can have a deceleration weight of up to 1000 kg.
Furthermore the waist belt should be drawn tight so that the user is held in the harness even if the body in question has ended upside down.
Fixed harnesses are therefore often sold in four to six different sizes so that each user shall be able to find a size which fits him or her. The adjustable harnesses have adjustment arrangements on both the leg straps and the waist belt and, where appropriate, also on the shoulder straps and each harness can be adjusted by means of these adjustment arrangements to fit the respective user when he or she puts it on.
A pair of working trousers with a fixed safety harness of the type mentioned above is described in the Larson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,289,590, issued Mar. 1, 1994 and is incorporated herewith as reference.
For certain groups of users, the tightly fitting harnesses are an inconvenience for most of the time, for example for firefighters, who when turning out usually do not know if they will need a PFE during the current job. Their emergency suits should comprise some sort of PFE which conventionally can consist of a harness of the type shown in SE-C-9001176-8.
Consequently, the firefighter shall always have his or her PFE on during turn-out, which means that the harness is always on even when working with car accidents, forest fires, drowning accidents etc., where it in fact is not needed, as well as with roof work and advanced rope rescues where the harness really proves to be useful.
For the average firefighter, this probably means that he or she does not have need for his or her PFE for 90% of his or her call out time, but however must wear it in the event that the job requires it. A requirement from firefighters is that naturally the harness during turn-out shall restrict freedom of movement as little as possible, which up to now has not been compatible with the requirements for the reliability of the harness which requires that the harness must be tightly fitted in order to fulfill its function in fall situations.
A correctly fitted harness has tight fitting leg straps which means for a firefighter that even when the job takes place at ground level, the firefighter is unnecessarily forced to feel the pressure of the leg straps around his or her legs. In certain situations which require a crouched working position or a crawling movement the harness can be directly obstructive as it tightens around the leg at the hips and diminishes the range of movement.
Similar problems to those described also occur to a certain extent in such work which is performed by for example the police, soldiers, linesmen, building workers, etc.
Another problem especially amongst roofers and the like is that work clothes in the form of, for example, a pair of working trousers are exposed to greater wear than the harness which is protected by the pair of trousers against mechanical wear and ultra violet rays. Because of the comparatively stronger construction of the harness, even if it is exposed to a similar amount of wear as a pair of trousers, it has a longer life than them. Consequently, the life of the harness greatly exceeds the life of a pair of working trousers. Furthermore, because the major part of the total manufacturing costs of a pair of trousers with an integrated harness is due to the harness, it is advantageous if the harness is not fixedly attached to the pair of trousers but it easily transferable from a worn out pair of trousers to a new pair.